Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center,
University of Texas at Austin

William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) was born in Dublin, Ireland,
the eldest of four children born to Susan Pollexfen and John Butler Yeats.
While the family lived primarily in Dublin and London, time spent with
relatives in County Sligo influenced Yeats' dreams and aspirations. In Sligo
he
learned the folk lore, myths, and legends which provided the structure and
background for so much of his poetry.

An uninspired student, Yeats spent five years at the
Godolphin Day School while his father studied painting in London. Upon the
family's return to Ireland in 1880 he attended Erasmus High School before
being
sent to the Metropolitan Art School. His artistic talent proved to be as
indifferent as his scholarship, but he came away from the experience with
a
lifelong friend in his fellow student George William Russell. Russell may
have
provided impetus to what became Yeats' lifelong interest in mysticism and
the
occult.

Yeats' first published poems appeared in
The Dublin University Review in
1885. By 1889 Yeats was able to publish an entire volume of poems,
The Wanderings of Oisin and Other
Poems. When Maud Gonne, an actress and Irish nationalist, sought an
introduction to Yeats to praise
Oisin, Yeats fell immediately in
love with her and she became a fixture in his imagination and poetry. She
refused his many offers of marriage; however, she encouraged his involvement
in
the Irish Nationalist movement, thereby adding another dimension to his
work.

The 1890s were busy and pivotal for Yeats. His family had
returned to London where he co-founded and participated in the Rhymers club
with Ernest Rhys, Richard Le Gallienne, Arthur Symons, and Oscar Wilde, among
others. He founded the Irish Literary Society in London and in Dublin the
National Literary Society, which spread throughout Ireland. During the same
period, Yeats began to envision an Irish National Theatre, partly as a vehicle
for his first effort at play writing,
The Countess Cathleen, but also
because he had begun to develop an idea of transforming and uplifting the Irish
notion of culture through theatre and literature. In 1896, shortly after
returning to live permanently in Ireland, he met Lady Gregory who sought to
help the habitually impoverished and frequently ill Yeats. She provided him
with summers in the country and it was largely through her efforts that the
Irish Literary Theatre, later the Abbey Theater, came into being.

An American lawyer, John Quinn, first met Yeats in 1902 and
proposed an American lecture tour. Yeats agreed and in 1903-4 he traveled
to
America appearing at most of the major American colleges and universities,
clubs, and societies. He made an excellent impression and returned for similar
tours in 1912 (with the Abbey Theatre troupe), 1914, and 1920.

In 1912, Yeats took up fencing at the suggestion and under
the direction of his new secretary, Ezra Pound. Pound also introduced Yeats
to
Japanese Noh drama, which became a strong influence on his later theatrical
works. In 1917, Yeats bought Thoor Ballyle, a stone tower near Coole Park.
In
the same year, the 52-year-old Yeats married Georgie Hyde-Lee, who was 26.
The
marriage was a happy one and the couple had two children, Anne Butler (1919)
and William Michael (1921).

The year 1922 saw the start of the Irish Civil War, during
which Yeats supported the pro-treaty governments, and the death of his father
in New York. In 1923 Yeats received the Nobel Prize for Literature. Over the
next decade Yeats' health slowly declined; however he continued to write and
take an active part in the new politics of Ireland. He worked on a committee
to
advise the government on a new coinage and in 1928 he served a term in the
Irish Senate. By 1936 he was suffering from serious heart problems and
nephritis and in January 1939 he died in France. His was originally buried
in
Roquevurne, France, but in 1948 his remains were reinterred in Drumcliff,
County Sligo.

Typescripts and page proofs of works and letters from the
author make up the bulk of the W. B. Yeats Collection, 1872-1970. The
collection is organized into four series: Series I. Works, 1887-1939 (4.5
boxes); Series II. Correspondence, 1891-1938 (4.5 boxes); Series III. Yeats
Family, 1872-1970 (1 box); and Series IV. Third-Party Works and Correspondence,
1905-1970 (1 box). This collection was previously accessible through a card
catalog, but has been re-cataloged as part of a retrospective conversion
project. Titles of all works and names of all correspondents are indexed at
the
end of this guide.

The works series contains page proofs from many of Yeats'
volumes of poetry and plays including
The Countess Cathleen,
The Wanderings of Oisin, and
Wild Swans at Coole,Other Verses and A Play in Verse.
In addition is a draft for a proposed eleven volume series of Yeats' work.
These volumes are represented by proofs pages from previous publications,
rearranged with notes and insertions. A number of individual holograph and
typescript poems are also present.

The correspondence series overwhelmingly is made up of
letters from Yeats to friends and publishers. Of particular note among his
correspondents are Mabel Beardsley, Edmund Dulac, Joseph M. Hone, William
Horton, George Russell, and Fisher Unwin. Letters to Yeats are grouped together
in a single folder and a lively correspondence between Yeats and Thomas Sturge
Moore carried out between 1901 and 1936, is present at the end of the
series.

Series III is made up of works and correspondence from
members of the Yeats family, including Elizabeth Corbet, Georgie Lees, Jack
Butler, John Butler, and Lily. Of particular interest in this series is a
set
of W. B. Yeats' hand prints on two sheets of paper.

Series IV contains works and letters by and between friends
and associates of the Yeats' family. Edmund Dulac's musical score for
At the Hawk's Well, Pamela
Hickson's
"The Fair Youth of Yeats," and
James P. O'Reilly's
"W.B. Yeats and Undergraduate
Oxford," are present, as is correspondence from Russell Alspach to his
co-editor R. L. Dewilton, and James F. Drake, Inc.'s letters to Elizabeth and
Jack Butler Yeats.

Elsewhere in the Ransom Center are 40 photographs of Yeats,
his family, and people and places associated with him, located in the Literary
Files of the Photography Collection. Also present are 17 vertical files
containing newspaper clippings covering the publication and criticism of Yeats'
work, as well as biographical and printed material. Portraits and drawings
of
Yeats appear in about a dozen collections in the Art Collection, as well as
a
group of materials from Yeats' personal art collection. Other materials related
to W. B. Yeats may be found in the following manuscript collections at the
Ransom Center: